OK I am about at the end of my rope here. I understand that 1-75 unless you do EVERY party with ls members, you will be getting bad party members. However... 7 bad whms in a row is kind of rediculous. Honestly whm in parties, not too hard to do. Keep your tank/dds hasted, keep up with NA spells on the tanks FIRST, and for places like the mire... Bring 3 stacks of Echo drops just in case. I don't care if your bank is low, I don't care if you don't have much time to farm, I don't even care if your mom just died. A good whm should ALWAYS have at least a stack of echos on them at ALL TIMES.

When you are leveling, there are 3 things you should always watch, your hate level, your tanks hp, and your Melee's HP. You should not have to watch your own MP. Your puller should be watching that. But...don't think you should never tell your puller to hold up. Even the best pullers slip up sometimes.

Keep your tanks hasted (post 40) keep silence off of them. And by this, I mean that if your tank gets silenced, you need to have silence off of them **** near instantly.

If mp is an issue you can slack up on hastes for your melees, but god help you keep it on your tank.

NEVER do anything above a curaga 2, EVER while a mob is still alive. I don't care what Hp the mob is at, you will pull hate with a curaga 3 or 4.

Never cure 4 at the beginning of a fight. Its never fun pulling hate off a whm, and I am sure you do not like being taken down to 200ish hp in a zone full of undead either. So don't do it.

HAVE ALL OF YOUR SPELLS. Nothing is more annoying than pulling aggro and dying and asking for an r2 or 3 only to hear your whm say "its too expensive." You can slack up on some of your single target prot and shell spells FOR NOW, but make sure to get them before you head to endgame. Make sure you have ALL na spells. Some of them you will almost never need, but when you do, not having them WILL mean a wipe. (IE Stona, cursna)

Sorry for the rantish post, I am just tired of leveling another job and wishing I was the whm in the party cause the whm I have is seriously under informed.

I don't normally carry echo drops, because having them is not an acceptable substitute for not pulling hate on mobs that use Silence moves. Exorays? Stand off to the side, damnit. Imps? Quit standing in melee range. Toramas? Quit pulling hate (it's single-target here). (That said, if I'm there to melee - which means it's a 3-man or 4-man LS thing anyway, usually - I'll carry them if we're fighting stuff that's capable of silencing.)

-na spells: If the tank doesn't get hit, hopefully you're paying attention to who's been pulling hate more often. -na them first.

Pullers rarely, if ever, watch the healer's MP... or much of anything else other than noticing that there's not the battle music going. I don't care if you claim that you do. I've never seen you do it. I've seen you run off to grab something when I'm at 150MP (which is only going to be enough MP to heal you if you can blast the **** out of it). I've seen you run off to grab something while two people are weakened (...okay, fine, on goes the melee gear because their damage contribution is going to be roughly what one normal melee's is).

Regarding haste: you can more safely skip a PLD tank than you can a NIN tank. You can more safely skip a SAM or DRG than a DRK or WAR (given equal-delay weapons, the former generate TP faster than the latter anyway). Don't ever bother hasting a RNG unless they're meleeing for TP.

Curaga 3 is acceptable a maximum of once per fight, and only if the melees are being idiots and are all in range of Incinerate. (You can get away with a second usage only if you're actually willing and prepared to tank.)

Cure 4 needs to hold off until at least 20 seconds into the fight, unless the tank WSes before the 20-second mark. (If fights are lasting only 30-40 seconds, waiting for the tank to 'voke a second time isn't viable.)

Expensive spells: we don't have any, other than teleports, anymore (and if you sold those to raise money, you shouldn't be leveling WHM past 35 anyway). Reraise II is the most expensive non-teleport spell, and it's only 40k. "It's too expensive" is an excuse for not having a Noble's Tunic. It's not an excuse for not having a spell.

The problem with most WHMs is they don't give a sh*t about the job. I'm in a shell with one of the WORST WHMs I've ever had the pleasure of cleaning up after, but I have a feeling it's not his main job, he just does it for the shell, and thus does not care. I find this is the case with a lot of WHMs leveling up. They're doing it for their LS, for Maat's Cap, for any reason other than actually enjoying the job. I know full well going into a pickup xp party that the healing is probably going to be very sub-par, which is why I load up on basic meds (echoes, eye drops, etc.) and sometimes dual-box an outside mage. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

MDenham wrote:

I don't normally carry echo drops, because having them is not an acceptable substitute for not pulling hate on mobs that use Silence moves.

I completely agree there's no reason to be pulling hate or standing in range of silence, but the part I quoted bothers me. Any responsible mage ~always~ has a stack of echo drops in his/her inventory. Even the most responsible of us can get unlucky once in a while. "I'm too responsible to carry echoes" is just as lame as standing in range or pulling hate.

Also, you getting silenced is not always a result of YOU pulling hate. Another backliner might do it, the frontline's hate might get reset, you might not be able to back away in time because there is other potential aggro in the area (Nyzul!), etc.

**** does happen. I don't know anyone that can claim that (sh)it never happens to them.

I don't always keep echo drops right in my inventory though. Depends what I'm going to head out to do. There's tons of various situational meds out there; I'm not going to carry it all all of the time just because it's situational. Satchel is a good place for it though.

Also, you getting silenced is not always a result of YOU pulling hate. Another backliner might do it, the frontline's hate might get reset, you might not be able to back away in time because there is other potential aggro in the area (Nyzul!), etc.

The situation being a normal EXP party, what I said stands for the most part. (If we have issues with another backliner pulling hate in an EXP party, they're getting a clue-by-four upside their head. And then I'm going to stand as far from them as is viable if they're getting me hit with AoEs.)

So when you leveled your whm in the mire, you NEVER EVER pulled hate cause of a bad tank, or was just barely in range of silence. Yeah I doubt that. A responsible mage should always have stuff on them just in case. There is no such thing as a perfect party. **** will **** up. Tanks WILL die. And your mp will be pushed to the limit. Its part of the game. Learning how to deal with it makes you a good mage. Sitting there with your thumb up your *** saying "I never carry echos cause I am too smart, so this must be your fault" is not.

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Pullers rarely, if ever, watch the healer's MP... or much of anything else other than noticing that there's not the battle music going. I don't care if you claim that you do. I've never seen you do it. I've seen you run off to grab something when I'm at 150MP (which is only going to be enough MP to heal you if you can blast the **** out of it). I've seen you run off to grab something while two people are weakened (...okay, fine, on goes the melee gear because their damage contribution is going to be roughly what one normal melee's is).

Uhh who are you talking to in that quote? Im confused. The only times I have pulled were in merit parties and I don't pull when people are weak in those, and a few times on my sam.

So when you leveled your whm in the mire, you NEVER EVER pulled hate cause of a bad tank, or was just barely in range of silence. Yeah I doubt that.

I did one party in the Mire.

And the leader told me to stand where I got aggroed three times.

I stuck to Bibiki Bay parties for the most part after that, and the **** with Imps being squishy. (I think I've only had three actual EXP parties in the Mire since then, simply because I turn them down as a matter of course unless I'm really desperate for EXP. Haven't pulled hate in any of them.)

The problem with most *insert job here* is they don't give a sh*t about the job. I'm in a shell with one of the WORST WHMs I've ever had the pleasure of cleaning up after, but I have a feeling it's not his main job, he just does it for the shell, and thus does not care. I find this is the case with a lot of WHMs leveling up. They're doing it for their LS, for Maat's Cap, for any reason other than actually enjoying the job. I know full well going into a pickup xp party that the healing is probably going to be very sub-par, which is why I load up on basic meds (echoes, eye drops, etc.) and sometimes dual-box an outside mage. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

FTFY ^^

I've been a career whm for over 6 years now and while I certainly have noticed a huge decline in the quality of those lvling the job up now, I've also noticed that holds true for just about every other job out there as well. Rdms that ***** if they have to do anything beyond casting dia/bio, paralyze, and slow on a mob, brds that think they're only job is to pull, pullers that are oblivious to the status of the other pt members, tanks that can't hold hate at all, and melee that can't manage hate. Unfortunately it's a negative side effect that comes from faster exp and shorter fights.

If you can't make other players in your party play their job to the level you want them to play then your partly at fault. How is this so, you may ask? Some DD's thinks if they do the greatest and latest damage they can dish every swing then they are entitled to every whims they asks for. This is one of the most selfish opinions I think personally.

There are ways to make your party members play their job to the best of their ability with the given situation at hand. It is all about motivation and teamwork. Not you alone. If you can't make them do it then you are not entitled to whine either.

There will always be that 99% of people who will have the same mentality as yours. But there are a few who will rise above these situations, and its not because of the gears or skills, but because the person somehow manage to make everyone in the party do their job to the best they can and that person knows how to adjust to everyone's shortcomings. These are the types that are most remembered and respected.

As far as being a good whm... there is no point of whining and bragging how you can do better because whm itself is a selfless job, that is why whm's are the altruists of the game.

Wisdom trumps common sense in all direction. You might have common sense but if you don't have the wisdom to relate with others then you are just as useless.

If you can't make other players in your party play their job to the level you want them to play then your partly at fault.

Does the saying "you can lead a horse to the water but you can't make it drink" mean anything to you?

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there is no point of whining and bragging how you can do better because whm itself is a selfless job, that is why whm's are the altruists of the game.

Remember this, all you WHMs out there -- you are the altruists. People treating you unfairly? Too bad, you are meant to take it up the *** and like it. Only DRKs are allowed to complain, but nobody listens to them either.

The difference between a bad White Mage and a bad melee is that you can tell when the White Mage is bad because you can measure it in deaths.

No.

The difference between a bad WHM, a bad tank, and a bad melee is as follows:

* Bad tank: the standard deviation for the number of deaths is nearly zero, while the number of deaths for any given person is not. * Bad melee, type A: they have the most deaths when there's a dedicated tank. * Bad melee, type B: same as if there's a bad tank, in this case because fights are dragging out well beyond the WHM's MP. * Bad WHM, type A: the WHM is frequently reraising. * Bad WHM, type B: the tank is frequently being raised.

Any WHM who doesn't take echo drops with them wherever they go - is an idiot. I'm sorry but it's true. You are ultimately responsible for being able to cast and remove this crap from other people. That's not to say others shouldn't bring drops but a WHM should ALWAYS carry Echo drops.

You cannot do your job if you're silenced and echo drops are cheap to buy, freely available and even craftable at a reasonable level if you're THAT broke. I don't want to hear it, you don't have echo drops - especially in a situation where you will potentially be exposed to silence, you're a freaking idiot and a damned nuisance to any group you're a member of.

In fact any caster who goes anywhere without echo drops is an idiot.

I carry, Antidotes, Holy Water, Echo drops, sneak oil and prism powder as well as food and tools if appropriate. Dotes and water are more for other jobs/einherjar but the bare minimum you need as a WHM are echo drops and a stack of cookies.

People bring you along for a reason. That reason is to keep them alive and free of debuffs. You need reraise so you can always get up and raise others and you need echo drops so you can ALWAYS cast.

I cannot believe long term players in the WHM forum are advocating being lazy and cheap.

Thank you Eldelphia. This is one thing that I can't stand. Occasionally I will forget them while playing a melee job and switching to whm...but I store those in my satchel. Even when I don't have them I do. They are less than 10k a stack, very quick to use, and do not cause a moment of inability as other medicines do.

There is NO!!! reason whatsoever not to have them if you are a mage. Forgetting them occasionally is understandable everyone makes mistakes. But simply not having them... thats a whole other story.

As a Whm, i keep a stack of Echos on me, and a stack in my Satchel, i keep a stack of cookies in Satchel and a stack of Oils and Powders in Satchel, why? Ya never know when you might need them.

As far as Nas go, sometimes things happen, your tank gets silenced while you are casting regen 3 on them, you are not gonna get silence off them Immediatly, things happen, on this note also, if you are a Tank, just like a whm, you shoudl bring a few echos Juat in case, cause if the whm does get silenced, they need to remove from themselves before they can hit you with it.

Your comment on not having to watch your Mp, i disagree with however, Whm Should be watching their Mp, thats a major portion of their job, if you let yourself get to low, its your responsability to let the party know, especially the puller.

Ive been in parties where the puller literally just kept pulling, we were in Gustav Tunnel fighting flies, and the puller woudl literally pull the second the mob died. I was spamming Curaga 2s and divine seal on their recasts, and was riding about 150 Mp out of about 800 the entire party. This is not ok either.

Having all of spells i will definatly second however, there are not many spells which are over 100k that we need anymore, and as you said the ones that are higher up there, are questable.

Mostly those "bad" whms are often just leveling it cause they were told to, but to those of us who take pride in our jobs, it Really stands out when they are doing a bad job.

Just relax a bit, while you are a Good whm, not everyone is, and while some slip up a lot, some just have a bad day. Im sorry to hear about your bad Whm run, but not holding others to your standards will help you not get as Frustrated about it. I know its easier said then done, i mean i'll use Ne spells before the whms in parties on Blm..

Edit, forgotabout Curagas and larger cures. Ive used Curaga 4 in parties before, although its typically towards the end and after Great Bleat had worn off, but so far as you manage your hate, you can do things like this. Its all situational, and if you do little to pull hate during the whole fight, you can be a bit more liberal in the Cure Dept later on. However typically Leave Curagas to after fights, unless you are trying to wake the party up.

Maybe I'm just tired...or maybe perverted...but I thought the topic was "Bad WHMs in panties"

Anyway, I've partied with my share of Bad WHMs most notably was when I was playing BLU at a Colibri Camp. The WHM kept going afk and not bothering to tell anyone. Fortunately, I was able to keep the tank alive long enough to ask the puller to stop. We waited for the WHM to return and when he did he said he had to leave. At that point, none of us were in the mood to party any longer so we went our separate ways.

Good WHMs know how to debuff. It might only be 1/3 of parties where you don't have another debuffer, but you should be freaking debuffing the mob in those parties!!!!!! The next time I'm in a party where the WHM only cases cures and haste I'll swear I'll punch them in the face.

Good WHMs know how to debuff. It might only be 1/3 of parties where you don't have another debuffer, but you should be freaking debuffing the mob in those parties!!!!!! The next time I'm in a party where the WHM only cases cures and haste I'll swear I'll punch them in the face.

Yeah, I will second this. When I leveled whm 41+ I had a rdm static with me so I was always used to having another caster with me, but there are many times low man where it is just me and a brd (Plus others of course) that I will be using slow silence para.

The debuffing issue always comes up in my Dynamis. You get WHMs ******** at the RDMs because a crow got off Silencega. Helloooooo, WHMs have silence too! And with /SCH you don't even need exceptional enfeebling gear to land it effectively.

We get access to enfeebling spells and some nice enfeebling gear for a purpose. Healer's Briault is not hard to get, NQ staves are dirt cheap nowadays [though most WHMs I've partied with hardly have both a light and dark staff, which is absolutely deplorable!!!!]. If you're not using /SCH by now, suck it up and level it.

At the very least, throw out a Dia II on XP mobs. Most WHMs I see can't even do this. Believe it or not, lowering the mob's defenese = faster kills = faster XP!

Someone once said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." You're only helping yourself by debuffing if you don't have a RDM in the party.

I remember when i was leveling whm, even with a Rdm static partner, we split Enfeeble Duty, i took Para and slow, while he took Blind/silence if needed. I would Dia 2, and he would Bio 2, w/e the tank wanted at the time. (this is going back a few years before ToAU)

I was in a dyna last night, and out of boredom i was throwing Silence, slow and para on as many mobs as i could, just because it can't hurt. 1 paralyzed attack can be the difference from a Dead tank to one thats living, slow can neam the difference of getting a cure off vs being interrupted, and silence helps the Rdms not have to focus on the crows/scorps as much so they can focus on sleeping mobs.

I think i would go crazy if i Didn't do some enfeebling >.>

Its part of a Whm's job, we get the spells and even without /Sch we have pretty decent skill.

The debuffing issue always comes up in my Dynamis. You get WHMs ******** at the RDMs because a crow got off Silencega. Helloooooo, WHMs have silence too! And with /SCH you don't even need exceptional enfeebling gear to land it effectively.

Not a WHM (BLM here, I casts the spells that make the peoples fall down!), but whenever I do that, I end up getting chewed out by the RDMs because their enfeebling skill is SO much better, which means it sticks longer, and they can't silence a mob that I've already silenced, now CAN they? So I just let them take care of it, since they want to so badly.

Then, half the time, they don't notice when it DOES wear off, until it casts a nasty *ga. (can I get an "eyeroll" smiley?)

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FFXIV: Raji Skybrand - Dragon's Aery <HNMLS> (Leviathan) Give a man a fish, he'll be fed for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll scream "F*** off noob, I know what I'm doing!" and continue to do it wrong.

Not a WHM (BLM here, I casts the spells that make the peoples fall down!), but whenever I do that, I end up getting chewed out by the RDMs because their enfeebling skill is SO much better, which means it sticks longer, and they can't silence a mob that I've already silenced, now CAN they? So I just let them take care of it, since they want to so badly.

As far as things like preventing Breakga goes, it should be high-priority, and therefore it's a free-for-all. Nobody gives a **** who lands it, just make sure someone lands it.

Maybe I don't join the most organized of events, but when I'm fighting some big nasty foe and it is absolutely critical that a certain move used at 50% HP or whatever gets stunned, the group doesn't just put its one best BLM or stunner or whatever on the job. EVERYONE in the group that's capable of stunning will look out for this move and try to stun it.

All that being said, if you are the one that lands the Silence or whatever X critical enfeeble and your foe isn't dispatched before it wears off, please take care to reapply it yourself, or call it out for someone else to do it if you can't. You can see the wearoff message, but everyone else won't.

I retired my 75 WHM from party play a long time ago because of this kind of BS attitude. People seem to ALWAYS blame the WHM for party failure and ALWAYS think they are the number 1 priority in the party. "HASTE" "I NEED HASTE" "PARA" "I'M BLINDED" "POISON". 6 members in a party, 5 of which can't do anything but hit the mob, 1 of which should be hit by the mob, 4 of which are doing their damndest to rip hate and show how hard they can hit the mob, and all start crying the instant they get an ATK down. "ERASE" (I fuggin love it when they use all caps). Priority 1 is not your erase, poisona or haste it's keeping people alive. Sometimes I avoid hasting people because if you allow them too much TP they decide it would be better for the party if they become a cure sink. Personally I don't care if you have to suffer poison for the full duration because I have to cure bomb some berserk suicidal melee to keep the party alive then that's whats going to happen.

WHM is not a difficult job and yes there are a few do and do nots. Bring echo drops it's important. Curaga 3 or 4 can be used but only in some situations not ideal for party play. as for standing in melee range depending on mob type Esuna only works if a WHM stands in melee range. As for blaming the WHM though, that's total BS.

The WHM is a reactionary job and has to react to the situation of the party if someone in the party just did something stupid it's the WHM's job to fix the problem before someone ends up dead. The measure of success or fail is not the sole responsibility of the WHM but how the group functions as a whole.

Oh and lightningcount not to say everything you said is wrong but your huge YOU ALL SUCK WHM'S rant and start spouting off rules is in pretty poor taste.

Not the same thing. Utsusemi isn't for contingencies, it's constantly used (not to mention significantly cheaper per-use) and it's an integral part of the job no matter what you are fighting. On the other hand, if I must be placed in a situation where I will get constantly re-silenced and you expect me to keep slurping down echo drops to handle it, I will call you a lunatic.

Fortunately those situations are not common (at least not for WHM), which just goes to show how different they are from shihei.

I will gladly blame a whm who does not use silena on a ninja tank to the point where the ninja has already burned 4 stacks of echos and is out. I am a whm... I know the job, and know it well. When I get a bad one, I know it. ANYONE in here who has had a bad party will know what the fault was. 9 times out of 10 it is either the tank or healer.

I have just been unlucky enough to get 7 bad whms in a row. Its simple. I do not request haste. I do not request silena, I bring echos for that. However if I have to tell the whm to silena and haste a ninja, then yeah something is dead wrong.

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Oh and lightningcount not to say everything you said is wrong but your huge YOU ALL SUCK WHM'S rant and start spouting off rules is in pretty poor taste.

Maybe, but I was ****** off. Being in a party for 45 minutes, dying, and losing all the exp you just gained will do that to you.

ROFL!! They've got almost the exact same Thread going on in the RDM forum. =D

BlahBlahBlah! I got a bad pt... BlahBlahBlah!! ppl aren't doing their 'jobs' BlahBlahBlah!!! It sux you had sooo many in a row, trully, I feel your pain.(no sarcasm intended)

I don't know what 75 jobs you have, so I'm not going to pretend like I know what kind of healing experience you have, but simply put... It only takes one A-Tard in the party to completely make life **** for a healer. Even worse when its the tank.

I consider myself an accomplished healer, but that doesn't go without saying(which i reiterate to my tanks on a consistent basis) that my ability to heal efficiently and keep full buffs/debuffs/heals/-NA is dependent mainly on the ppl within the pt(mainly the tank from my experience).

My long winded point...(which someone mentioned as well..)

Theirs quite a bit a healer needs to do in comparison to that of a melee(wackwackwack), some ppl tend to think that their mp is never ending and throw caution to the wind.

lightningcount wrote:

You should not have to watch your own MP.

How else you supposed to know when to rest? lol. And also, EVERYONE should be watching the healers mp as well(wtf else are you guys doing anyways..). "WTF!! DRK just used SoulEater and I only have 150mp left?!?!? Meh, I guess he dies this round"

I wasnt in your parties so I don't know what the healer did "wrong", for all I know it was You and the other members. I'll just cough it up to being a bad pt in general. 7 bad parties... mite be something to this. lol. j/k

lightningcount wrote:

Nothing is more annoying than pulling aggro and dying and asking for an r2 or 3 only to hear your whm say "its too expensive."

Couple things.. NOTHING is more annoying when your silly melees dont carry around rr or when they agro in general and die and require us to risk our **** to raise you. I dont particularly enjoy some of the suicide raises I have to do, or raising some goof cuz he thought he could afkFollow so he could go nuke a hotdog and be back before sneak/invis wore off!

I main heal with rdm and sch primarily and goofing around with brd sometimes(600mp~). I plan to level whm to 75 eventually. But christ, I dont think I want r2(I have because of sch already..) and r3, im perfectly content with r1. No idea how annoying it is to hear from melees, "I'm gonna delevel!! I NEED R3" Um.. keep your exp capped!

lightningcount wrote:

Never cure 4 at the beginning of a fight

I do it all the time, but I do it intelligently and I seldom ever pull hate. Having -30emn, watching for initial voke, watching if the person has hit the mob yet(thus accruing hate), watching if an already substantial WS was done already to maintain hate. So ya. You can do it! quite often in fact if your paying attention to how much hate others have.

Lastly..

As far as Echoes go... I personally think everyone should have them on them. Specifically all mage types as well as those who come /nin. Not saying I expect others to spam them, but saying you died because lack of silena is a lame excuse. Should always have something to fall back on in case for some reason.. your healer wasnt able to.

Can rant all you want, but in the end everyone can ummm.. Re-rant about the stupid crap they have to deal with, with their specific job.

If mp is an issue you can slack up on hastes for your melees, but god help you keep it on your tank.

Okay, first up. Haste is a wonderful tool, but it's not suddenly going to turn a bad tank into a good one. There's little point in shouting it's praises when all it does is speed up a handful of actions. In PLDs there's melee speed (lol) and there's the recast on Flash and cures. The recast on cures is negligible anyway and while Flash is a very nice spell, it's mostly for spike hate and not long term enmity. If one Flash is the difference between you taking hate or not, there are bigger issues at hand than you not hasting them.

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Never cure 4 at the beginning of a fight. Its never fun pulling hate off a whm, and I am sure you do not like being taken down to 200ish hp in a zone full of undead either. So don't do it.

If someone is going to die if I don't Cure IV them, you can bet your *** that's exactly what im going to do. Just because I play a White Mage doesn't mean im a total pushover. We have Stoneskin to reduce damage and unless we popped Divine Seal or something, it's unlikely we'll have hate for long. In fact, I dare to say there are too many white mages who are so petrified of taking hate, even for a few seconds, that they don't cast Cure IV ever. Sheesh, haven't they ever heard of emnity gear?

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NEVER do anything above a curaga 2, EVER while a mob is still alive. I don't care what Hp the mob is at, you will pull hate with a curaga 3 or 4

...and speaking of enmity gear. I know this might be hard for you to understand, but sometimes it's necessary to dump big cures to make sure everyone stays healthy. If that means a fat-*** Curaga III, then by god im going to cast it. If that means a Curaga IV, or even the use of Divine Seal, then watch me tank it and just do your best to kill it quickly. As I've already mentioned, I don't care that I get smacked around by dumping big cures since all of my actions are reduced in enmity and it probably won't last long. For massive cures, I'll happily tank until the monster gets bored simply because it likely won't live long enough to kill me, and I can always cure myself if required. Now, I'll admit a lot more discretion is advised when fighting things like NMs, but for your average everyday experience party, nothing could be more ridiculous than to claim a Curaga III killed you unless your party sucked in the first place.

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HAVE ALL OF YOUR SPELLS. Nothing is more annoying than pulling aggro and dying and asking for an r2 or 3 only to hear your whm say "its too expensive.

While I completely agree with the sentiment, there are some spells it's safe to do without for a short time. Deodorize is perhaps the singularly most useless spell in the game, worse still than the lowliest of Bard's exhaustive repetoire. The teleport spells, with the exception of Tele-Altep, can generally be held off on for a few levels since most people XP in the dungeons around Jeuno during those levels and travel by Chocobo instead.

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ring 3 stacks of Echo drops just in case.

If you suck badly enough to get through 36 Echo Drops, even in the mire, you really need to learn to distance yourself from the monster. A single stack should be more than sufficient, and unless you're constantly stealing hate it's unlikely you'll run those down too far either. But at least we both agree on one thing -- mages should always keep Echo Drops, no matter what type of spells you cast.

To be fair, a lot of these points seem rather moot in the cut-and-thrust game we play today. There is no "tank", just a lot of Samurais or <insert job here> wailing on a mob with very little regard as to who it's attacking, safe in the knowledge that its going to be dead very soon and none of that will matter anyway. And no, that's not just endgame merit parties, this ideology has permeated down to the lower 50's and even some level 38~ parties with their Colibri runs in East Ronfaure [S]. But it works! And as long as something works, people will continue to do so. I don't really care one iota since it nets me faster XP (though I do miss skillchains, magic bursts and 'classic' XP zones), and im used to curing multiple players anyway.

White Mage is one job where the skill of the individual is greater than the gear they slap on (I'm of the opinion that Gear > Skill when it comes to most melee jobs since they pretty much just auto-attack and WS). There are a lot of things to concentrate on, and you need to time them well. You're bound to get a sucky WHM or two, but sometimes, especially when you get 7 in a row, you have to ask yourself: Is it really the white mages who suck, or the tank...?

Labelling someone an idiot is a sign of "I am better than you complex". It doesn't matter what justified reason you have. It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong. As a WHM you should know that going about things the negative way is not the best way to approach the job. You might be the latest and greatest DD or the fastest whm but telling someone that he/she is stupid or an idiot wont win you points. You might be the best at doing your job but if you don't have the ability to motivate your own party to bring out the best in them then you are bound to get an experience that is less than desirable.

There are a lot of things to concentrate on, and you need to time them well. You're bound to get a sucky WHM or two, but sometimes, especially when you get 7 in a row, you have to ask yourself: Is it really the white mages who suck, or the tank...?

I did not take into account any of the whms gear, excluding the one I mentioned, because pre 75, it doesn't really matter. **** post 75 you can have a badass whm in full relic and he will only lose out on epeen cures. Gear is all about efficiency on whm, and has almost no effect on our skill.

One whm would cast cure 2 to top off other players... thats fine an dandy, but he would top off another player while a melee or tank was in red. This one did not have any sense of urgency on curing when someone is near death.

Another whm I had full timed his af club. Granted I said gear doesn't take much out of our skill but, for ***** sake a light staff is 50k. Buy the **** thing. He actually wasn't that bad, except he was an elvaan with no mp+ gear so we constantly had to rest. 3k an hour at 65 GO!!!

One whm we had did not have silena in the mire. After our first wipe he bought silena and echo drops. I told him beforehand silena the ninja first. Stand out of range of aoe, and cure. After about 10 fights he did not cast 1 silena on our tank, the tank ran out of echo drops, and eventually ended up 2 houring. I did the same thing except I was polearm sam and got 2 of the 3 penta thrusts off before I was amnesia.

Those were the three that really stuck out in my mind. The others were just slow on their cures, would not haste, did not know was NA spells were, or refused to use barfira on erucas.

Another whm I had full timed his af club. Granted I said gear doesn't take much out of our skill but, for @#%^s sake a light staff is 50k. Buy the **** thing. He actually wasn't that bad, except he was an elvaan with no mp+ gear so we constantly had to rest. 3k an hour at 65 GO!!!

The most likely problem was a lack of sufficient Refresh and/or poor MP management, not a lack of +MP gear. Max MP doesn't mean **** anymore for EXP play at that level.

Those were the three that really stuck out in my mind. The others were just slow on their cures, would not haste, did not know was NA spells were, or refused to use barfira on erucas.

Well, not all white mages can be as proficient as the rest of us. It's what gives us professionals our edge. That being said, it seems you really did get exceptionally bad White Mages and I can only stress that players like that really are the minority and don't reflect all White Mages in general.

Chances are if you're posting this stuff on the White Mage forum then we already know about it. I don't claim to be Siren's greatest White Mage (though I continue to work towards the title) and im sure there are plenty of other White Mages on these forums even more adept than I am. Sometimes, however, you do find poor players. Not all of them are trying to suck, and might just need a gentle push to get them into the swing of things. Others, like your level 75 Silena-less idiot have the bigger problem of not giving a hoot about their job. They're pretty much impossible to help.

So, give your WHMs a gentle nudge and see if they react. Don't try and force their job upon them, since I think nearly every player hates it when people tell you how to play the game, but be firm and polite and you might just help turn a crap mage into a White Mage.

lol.. That 3rd party you talked about made me laugh so hard. No Silena.. Imps.. Nin.. Rofl!

Like Crystan said.. I do agree that not ALL spells are a huge priority(though I personally get them all so its one more thing finished) But ****!!! NA spells do not fall in that category. Not sure what kinda healers were seeking at the time, but I would have likely booted him from the party. Theirs just something that screams NOOB about someone that doesn't have the 'fundamentals'.

Its like a SAM showing up to a party with a Sword instead of GK or even Polearm. "I like the way it looks and I still tp sooo fast!" Not to come off as sounding elitist or anything.. But I try to stay clear of those ppl. Especially if its at the levels your talking about. lol.

Its like a SAM showing up to a party with a Sword instead of GK or even Polearm. "I like the way it looks and I still tp sooo fast!" Not to come off as sounding elitist or anything.. But I try to stay clear of those ppl. Especially if its at the levels your talking about. lol.

Turning down a SAM with polearm is a bad idea if you're fighting lolibri.

I should say it's not necessarily a bad idea. Of course, if the SAM puts little effort into polearm (basic example being not having it skilled up, for instance) it's not going to work well. Or if you're massively overhunting, but that's not exactly the SAM's fault.

Most of the SAM's I've lolibri'd with that used polearm had already played up DRG, and had polearm merits. (Or they already had SAM to 75 and merited it that way.)

I use polearm on imps sometimes. It works pretty well in fact. Since half the time I cant use JA or TP, I am relying on DoT and polearms are better against imps than GKT, or in my case, Soboro.

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The most likely problem was a lack of sufficient Refresh and/or poor MP management, not a lack of +MP gear. Max MP doesn't mean sh*t anymore for EXP play at that level.

Normally I would agree, but this guys only MP gear was AF, and insomnia/antivenom. His other gear was Mnd gear or low level gear that gives like 8mp 3 mnd. White Cape comes to mind. His max mp was somewhere in the high 400s. Normally I say that Max mp gear is for the beginning of a fight only, but it would be nice to have SOME mp gear so that your max isnt less than 500.

I mean the guy knew his job and played it well, but really he needed gear badly. With some wood gear, mp rings, some mp back and waist pieces then that party would have been a very good one. But it was usually the same. A chain 5 and rest till he gets MP back. BTW he didn't have an HMP setup either.

To be fair, I've had earlier equipment setups which had very little MP+ and mostly stacked on MND. I'll admit in hindsight that I might have been able to perform better with a larger MP pool, but it was very rare that I ran down my whole MP pool in even a half competant party. Some mages need to learn to take a knee and rest their MP back during combat. Not all parties are going to die on you for resting a few ticks.

To be fair, I've had earlier equipment setups which had very little MP+ and mostly stacked on MND. I'll admit in hindsight that I might have been able to perform better with a larger MP pool, but it was very rare that I ran down my whole MP pool in even a half competant party. Some mages need to learn to take a knee and rest their MP back during combat. Not all parties are going to die on you for resting a few ticks.

Yeah, that's where an hMP setup (or at least cookies, FFS) come in.

Which apparently seems to be too hard for some people to set up as well.

If you suck badly enough to get through 36 Echo Drops, even in the mire, you really need to learn to distance yourself from the monster. A single stack should be more than sufficient, and unless you're constantly stealing hate it's unlikely you'll run those down too far either. But at least we both agree on one thing -- mages should always keep Echo Drops, no matter what type of spells you cast.

I had to touch on this. Generally, I do very long parties. (3 hour + parties) So one stack will not do me no matter how good I am at enmity control. In the mire... YOU WILL GET SILENCED!!! I don't care how good you are. There is no such thing as a perfect party there and you will be eating a silence. I always plan for the worst and hope for the best... Hence I take 3 stacks when Im mage there. Its something I learned from when I was new to the mire and didn't know anything about it. My first time I didn't take any and we wiped. Since then I learned to carry extra on you... just in case. (As I originally said in my post)

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I don't claim to be Siren's greatest White Mage (though I continue to work towards the title)

I can totally agree with the problems with some of the whm's today. Then again, its somthing that's been popping up for a very long time.

Back in the day when I was an active HNM WHM (Pre ToAU, pre CoP even... well ok CoP had just come out but sea didn't exist... well... it STARTED to exist back then) I still had problems with WHM's. I remember taking in a few new WHM's to the LS and having to "Train" them on how to heal. Somtimes I'd grab my MNK friend and say "OK, gotta train a new WHM, take him/her to KRT." 3 MNK/WAR and one WAR/NIN with just a whm and rdm/blm REALLY trained WHM's to be fast on their NA's, with only /smn (or /blm... which I still don't think compares to /smn, but /sch trumps all hands down!) MP becomes a concern (some of those berserked/Counterstanced mnk's would take close to 300 a swing on damage). From there WHM's either broke and leveled a new job, or they improved dramatically.

Nowadays (just returned after a 4 year break because a friend of mine is paying for my accnt... but abuses it for good measure ^.~) there is no KRT test. No one bothers fighting kittens in the Labrynth of Ozblblblbl(can't spell half the things SE names!), so they don't get used to paralyna/silena on tanks the instant Chaotic eye flares. THey don't fight in Valley of Sorrows or Cape Terrigan learning to Stona and Silena tanks the instant they see one of the animations, and they don't have to worry as much about healing as they used to.

For instance, I got sch to 37, then joined a level sync pt on whm (sync'd to 70) and I was amazed at how little the PLD tank took on damage. I just threw a regen III and waited for them to hit yellow... and waited... then waited some more... then decieded that because the tank was actually healing itself every once in a while (Never hit yellow) yet still had plenty (300+) mp started doing other whm'y things like... haste 4 people, silena'ing the tank every time I heard the horn go off and saw green (yellow lights = amnesia, green = aoe silence).

Things to note that I started leveling WAR after coming back from my retirement. As war, I've seen a lot of horrible whm's. WHM's who fear of taking hate (I have capped emn+ merits! ZOMG!) was so strong they only used Cure V... when the tank had 900/1250 hp... He never used regen, but I was happy he remembered to erase the bard when he pulled using elegy on Colibri (gotta love that reflect!). So... I chatted with him about it, and yes... by being polite, and reasoning with him he started doing other WHM'y things like... using cure III instead of V, using regen on the tank, and hasting more than just the tank. I still never got hasted, but that was a good thing as every time I did I'd accidently pull hate and end up tanking for a bit (/nin 4tw).

So, in short, LC, I know there are a lot of horrible whm's out there, and they breed like rabbits, and I can understand how frustraiting it is when you have a slacker healing a pt (got so disgusted with a rdm/whm not hasting/silena'ing the nin tank I kicked him and got whm/sch...). However, don't take it out on the community as a whole. And only get very upset with them after you've chatted with them in /tell for a bit asking why they're slacking in a polite manner. somthing like...

Me> Dude, you must be bored. WHM> Actually I'm not Me> Then why are you dropping all those cure V bombs? WHM> Lowest threat generating healing spell there is! :) (to myself: Actually that'd be cure I...) Me> Lol, no worries! this guy's holding hate against my 700+ raging rushes you won't pull hate. WHM> I have capped emn+ merits. Me> oh? wow, that's awesome! Still, WHM af has some good emn-, and I've got a raven beret you can borrow if you're that worried about hate. WHM> That's ok. Me> So, try out some of the other cures. This guy's really good at holding threat so I wouldn't worry too much about it. and if they do, well I can WSvokewarcy to get it off you and blink tank the last bit. Plus ****'s here to backup heal. WHM> ok, I'll try it.

You'd be amazed at how many times a velvet glove with compliments to people both them and their pt members make a difference in chaging their behavior. With just a few little changes like that a rough "OMG We're all gonna die pt" turned into a nice 14k/hr xp pt. (Considering I'd been used to 5k/hr being good xp...)

Anyway, try those methods out the next time you're having a "Problem player" and like I did with the RDM who was being way too much of a slacker (I'd tried the same kinds of things with the RDM as I did with this WHM, as well as chatting with the NIN tank) you can always ask for lead and boot them, or if they're lead, just drop pt, go back to town and look for a new one. With level sync it isn't too difficult to get pt's... even as a melee.

~Noreen

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Everyone has it within them to say "This I am today. This I shall be tomorrow." The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds. ~Louis L'Amour

Yeah I can totally agree with this sentiment. I even do it most of the time, if the whm speaks english, but many times I get back. "Ive been playing for 4 years, what do you know man, STFU dude I know how to play my job." I would like to say that these are rare occurrences but... I get this back more often than not.

Usually that is the point I just let the whm and, usually, the party fail. I am not the best whm in the world, however I know my job and do it well. I know that almost none of the whms I party with pre 75 will be up to my standards of a whm, however, I expect them to be at least half way decent. When PLD SAMx2 RDM WHM BRD pt fails... Something is just wrong.

I to this day will help out whms who are willing to be helped. But if someone wants to bite the hand that feeds so to speak, then I will not help them. The elvaan whm I mentioned who had really crappy gear was cool with me helping him with his gear. The next time I saw him, in another party, he had a light staff, nobles, and some better MP gear. Granted he bought gil to buy those things... (And yes I did give him a nice little lecture on exactly how bad it was to buy gil) The next party with him was actually very good. 8k an hour on imps, and the guy even used mushroom stew.

1 out of 7 people I tried to help, and the only one who actually wasn't ****** about me trying to help him. Terrible odds really. But what can you do besides keep trying right?

As for my OP, I was ******* Very ******* 7 bad parties in a row and all of them were because people were not being healed or had their ailments removed. Did I mention I was *******

The eternal worship of the KRT parties is getting a bit ridiculous. Casting a few Na's isn't that difficult. Any endgame WHM does more than this at virtually any event. As far as experience parties only, okay, maybe it's a bit easier now. It's also more difficult too. Juggling /sch and the new WHM stances as efficiently and quickly as possible, usually through a multiple macro page swaps, while managing your own refresh through sublimation is more fun than casting a few Na spells, and more challenging in my opinion.

I mean, I get it, Chaotic Eye was really scary. Imps spam that **** all the time, and it's AoE.

I had to touch on this. Generally, I do very long parties. (3 hour + parties) So one stack will not do me no matter how good I am at enmity control. In the mire... YOU WILL GET SILENCED!!! I don't care how good you are. There is no such thing as a perfect party there and you will be eating a silence.

Baraera, Barsilence, Resist Silence. Enough said really. Those three things alone render me virtually untouchable by the imps silence move. I have Cleric's Cap which further boosts "Resist Silence" given by SCH sub and im smart enough to stay out of range of the imps. The odd times I've been accidentally hit (again, not often) are when one of our party aggroes a second imp.

Yes, occasionally I do get silenced and yes so will others, but if it's happening enough that you eat 12 echo's in a 1hr period you really need to re-evaluate your party structure. The DD's and tank should easily maintain hate over your curing and buffing and if they're not then chances are you're overspamming or they just plain suck. The whole idea of XP in the mire is that everyone TP burns the imps so they die quickly. If thats not happening then you should find somewhere better to XP.

Baraera, Barsilence, Resist Silence. Enough said really. Those three things alone render me virtually untouchable by the imps silence move. I have Cleric's Cap which further boosts "Resist Silence" given by SCH sub and im smart enough to stay out of range of the imps. The odd times I've been accidentally hit (again, not often) are when one of our party aggroes a second imp.

Clerics cap would not be in effect for level sync, barsilence takes so long to cast that you will be putting party members at risk when you could have used an echo, and I use my strategems for penury since agas go off. (even rdms have trouble silencing imps)

I get what you are trying to say. However. I will never think of that as a valid way to play. I always carry more than I need just in case. Its called being prepared for everything. I rarely am without echos, silent oils, or prism powders on any of my jobs because I may need them. Even if the chance is extremely low, I still take them just in case.

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The whole idea of XP in the mire is that everyone TP burns the imps so they die quickly. If thats not happening then you should find somewhere better to XP.

Tell me, how can you tp burn a mob that spams amnesia, and the only method of removing amnesia is a ring that leaves you unable to use JA or WS for 30 seconds?

I have literally been amnesiad the instant I hit 100 tp and was unable to use my ws. I usually have to use sekkanoki right before a pull and spam 2 ws at the start of a fight just to make sure to get them in. But this is only once every 5 minutes. And any imp that the entire pt gets WS off at the beginning will probably use a song. I have seen whole fights where the only time I was able to ws was for a few second period between the tantaras.